EU supports projects on atmosphere research with 36 million euros – the research cluster “Aerosols and Climate“ starts at the AWI Potsdam

Lidar: Aerosols can be detected in the atmosphere using telescopes 

such as this Lidar. (Photo: J. Schmid, Alfred Wegener Institute)

Bremerhaven/Potsdam, 6 December 2013. The new research cluster “Aerosols and Climate” started on Thursday 5 December with a kick-off meeting at the Potsdam Research Unit of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). It brings together three projects, which deal with the interactions between aerosols and climate. The scientists involved want to minimise the great uncertainties in understanding the aerosol processes, which are emphasised in the last World Climate Report (IPCC). The EU is supporting the cluster in the coming four and a half years with a total of 36 million euros. 

The role of the aerosols has so far been one of the greatest unknowns in climate predictions. Aerosols – small droplets or particles floating in the air – reflect a part of the sunlight before it reaches the ground and they also radiate heat themselves. Furthermore they play an important role in the formation of clouds and influence the chemistry of the atmosphere. The formation of aerosols is frequently dependent on climate processes. This complicated interaction has not so far been correctly reflected in global climate models. 

“We do not understand many of the processes adequately to be able to correctly reflect the variations of aerosols in the atmosphere in climate models”, explains Dr. Markus Rex, atmosphere researcher at the Potsdam Research Unit of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research. For example, there are sulphuric acid droplets high above the Arctic, which considerably influence the Arctic climate. However, scientists have so far only had a rough understanding of their origin. “We know that the sulphur originates from the Tropics and we suspect that the resultant aerosols are transported in the Asiatic monsoon over the Himalayas to the Polar stratosphere”, says Markus Rex. 

However, where the aerosols precisely come from and why the stratospheric aerosol layer is subject to great fluctuations even if no volcanoes are active is currently unclear. As part of the StratoClim project, he and his colleagues want to conduct measurements in the Asian monsoon using a high-altitude research aircraft and set up a new measurement station in the tropical Western Pacific. Rex explains: “We first need to understand the processes about which quantities of aerosols are transported how and under which conditions. We then reflect these processes using detailed mathematical models. These results are then incorporated into global climate models, thereby reducing the uncertainties of future scenarios.”  

To concentrate competences in aerosol research, the EU has merged three research applications in a cluster. The research cluster was launched on 5 December with the public presentation of the three projects starting in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam. The project members met in closed workshops in the afternoon. 

Background to the EU cluster “Aerosols and Climate” 

“Aerosols and Climate” brings together three projects: 

• DACCIWA (Dynamics-aerosol-chemistry-cloud interactions in West Africa) headed by Prof. Peter Knippertz from the Karlsruhe Institut für Technologie (KIT) 

• BACCHUS (Impact of Biogenic versus Anthropogenic emissions on Clouds and Climate: towards a Holistic UnderStanding) under the lead of Prof. Ulrike Lohmann from the ETH Zürich 

• StratoClim (Stratospheric and upper tropospheric processes for better climate predictions), which is led by Dr. Markus Rex from AWI Potsdam. 

Further information is available at: http://www.Aerosols-Climate.org/

Notes for Editors: Your contact person at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam is Dr. Markus Rex (phone +49 331 288-2127; e-mail: Markus.Rex@awi.de). Your contact person in the Department of Communications and Media Relations is Dr. Folke Mehrtens (phone +49 471 4831-2007; e-mail: medien@awi.de). 

The Alfred Wegener Institute conducts research in the Arctic and Antarctic and in the high and mid-latitude oceans.  The Institute coordinates German polar research and provides important infrastructure such as the research ice breaker Polarstern and stations in the Arctic and Antarctic to the international scientific world. The Alfred Wegener Institute is one of the 18 research centres of the Helmholtz Association, the largest scientific organisation in Germany.